


'Cause I Don't Even Know What We Are (I Don't Even Know Where To Start)

by ghostlygone



Series: I Love You More And More (Than You Will Ever Know) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Family, Avengers Tower, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Hot Chocolate, Late Night Conversations, Platonic Cuddling, Secret Relationship, but Platonic - Freeform, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostlygone/pseuds/ghostlygone
Summary: She'll greet him with a nod and a smile and, when he occasionally has a bad day, there'll be a hot chocolate waiting in his spot. They rarely talk, and if they do it'll be a couple of sentences, about the non-personal stuff.Or, Natasha and Peter bond over Hot Chocolate and SkittlesOr, Natasha and Peter fluff
Relationships: Avengers Team & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Natasha Romanov
Series: I Love You More And More (Than You Will Ever Know) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616785
Comments: 10
Kudos: 99





	'Cause I Don't Even Know What We Are (I Don't Even Know Where To Start)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been reading and there isn't that many Nat & Peter fics, so I've decided to make a series of connected one-shots about their relationship. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Just changed a couple of sentences, Enjoy!)

The first time he's alone with the Black Widow is a Tuesday in January. It's two o'clock in the morning and everyone in the tower is asleep, including Tony, despite his protests that he needs to work on Steve's shield. Peter had finally gotten bored of laying in the dark, and padded into the kitchen, expecting it to be empty. Instead, he is greeted with the sight of Natasha Romanov in her pyjamas, sipping slowly at her mug of hot chocolate. She doesn't acknowledge him, but he senses her eyes watching his every move. When they lock eyes, he gives her a small smile, before padding over to the cupboard, where he keeps his skittles in the hidden panel. He joins her at the table, sitting diagonally across her, and she watches him suspiciously, as if waiting for him to pull out a gun. He doesn't, would never even consider it, instead digging his hand into the bag of skittles, and picking out all the red ones.

When he's halfway through eating the purple ones she stops. Stops watching him. And he smiles softly, ducking his head so she can't see, but he knows she notices. She trusts him, however minimal. After that they sit there. They sit there in the dark. They sit there for seconds and minutes and hours. They sit there until Black Widow's mug has been refilled five times, and Peter's skittles have long since been sorted and eaten. They sit there until light is coming in the window and there are birds and cars disturbing the peace of the night. And then, as one, they move. They stand up, and Black Widow washes and dries her mug and Peter throws away his skittles bag and they get rid of any evidence that shows they were there, and then they both walk back to their rooms, side by side. When Peter next comes out of his room, it's to grab some toast on his way out the door. And if, when he sees her on his way to his lab later that day, he smiles, nobody needs to know.

For a month, it happens. Peter would wake up and walk into the kitchen to find Natasha Romanov already there, sipping her hot chocolate, and he would join her with his skittles. He didn't tell anybody, didn't even hint at it. Not with MJ, not with May, not even Ned, who he tells almost everything (he keeps the fact that he was kidnapped by HYDRA a secret, for obvious reasons). They've made progress though. Now, she smiles when he arrives, and when they go different ways to their rooms, they both smile and nod. The first time that happens, Peter pulls his sweater over his fingers and hugs his legs tightly, smiling widely into his knees, and when he's in school, Ned keeps asking why he's grinning like a maniac.

The first official time he and the Natasha Romanov are alone together is a Wednesday. All the Avengers are out on a mission for the day, Black Widow staying behind because of a bullet wound she had received the day before, and Peter because he was technically meant to have school, despite convincing Pepper to let him stay (who knew that puppy eyes worked on one of the most badass women in the world?). They leave at five in the morning, meaning the two spiders had to cut their night routine short so as not to get caught. It seems to have become an unspoken rule between the two: don't let anyone know. Once they leave, Peter grabs a cup of coffee and runs down to his lab, prepared to work all day. What he's not prepared for, is Natasha fucking Romanov to drop out of the vents, land right behind him, and give him some hot chocolate. Now, Peter knows she's been drinking it for the last month, at least, and yet, when he went to go and make some yesterday, he couldn't find any anywhere. She obviously has a secret stash, and honestly? Peter is ecstatic that she is offering him some. He takes it, cautiously, and shyly talks to her for the first time.

"Thank you." She smiles at him, genuinely, and replies.

"You're welcome." After that, he goes back to what he was doing - working on upgrading Karen - and she curls up on his sofa sipping her own hot chocolate, watching him and looking more relaxed than he thought she would be. Nothing happens for a couple of hours, apart from Peter accidently blowing up his phone, but it's okay that he accidently set it on fire, because he hasn't slept in at least forty eight hours. Which, now he thinks about it, is bad, even for him. Natasha seems to notice his exhaustion, and stands up. Grabbing his arm softly, she pulls him over to the sofa and pushes him down so he's on his side, head resting on her lap. She threads her fingers through his hair and he can feel sleep creeping up on him. Before he knows it, he's sound asleep.

He wakes up to the faint murmurs of voices, talking loudly about something. He lays there for a second, before opening his eyes and realising where he is. When the voices register as Steve Rogers' and Tony Stark's, he shoots up, waking Natasha in the process. He hadn't even realised she was asleep, and if they weren't about to be busted, he would be fangirling. But, as it was, two of the greatest superheroes were standing in the lift, about to enter a room that only Peter, Ms Potts and Mr Stark has access to. Natasha jumps up too, and with a quick nod to the vent, Peter manages to get her to understand that she needs to leave. She jumps up into the vents, closing it just before the two enter the room to see Peter standing in the middle of a room looking guilty, with his phone lying in bits all around the room. Mr Stark sighs, gives Peter a what-have-you-done look, before pairing it with a we're-talking-about-this-later look, and walks back to the lift, the Captain following him. Peter hears muffled laughing coming from the vents above as they leave.

After that, Natasha seems more open during their late-night sessions. She'll greet him with a nod and a smile and, when he occasionally has a bad day, there'll be a hot chocolate waiting in his spot. They rarely talk, and if they do it'll be a couple of sentences, about the non-personal stuff. Things like missions and injuries and training. The Avengers stuff that you could tell anyone (not that anybody would believe Peter, but he could). Over the next couple of months they move closer together, so by April they're sitting across from one another, and Peter could reach out and touch her. He doesn't though, he knows what it's like to be touched when you don't want it.

They talk more as time goes on. By the end of May they talk every night, for however long. Seconds, or minutes. They don't talk too much, because this is their time. Their time, when the whole world is asleep but them. Occasionally they will have a conversation that takes up more than fifteen minutes. Natasha always starts them, but she always listens, whatever he wants to say. He doesn't talk too much, not rambling on like he does with Tony and Ned, instead he thinks out his words, says what needs to be said in the fewest words possible. He's picked it up from Natasha, and he doesn't mind. It helps him concentrate on things when he gets in bad situations.

He tells her the important stuff, like that one day when Ned had gotten kidnapped because some dude thought he was working with Spiderman (he used to, not anymore though, it's too dangerous) and the day when he woke up, tangled in his webs on the ceiling, memories of HYDRA filling his mind and again when he managed to upgrade Karen and Friday by himself. He also tells her the small things, like what prank he pulled on Clint in their prank war, and what movies he thinks are the best. Natasha talks too, sometimes about past experiences with both the Avengers and the Red Room, other times about all the stupid experiences she's had with Clint and all the pranks they've pulled on people. She tells him about how she's never really had a family, not until the Avengers, and how she loves sugar. It's one of the many things that they have in common: they both love sugar. 

A couple of nights after she says she likes sugar, Peter brings along starbursts and M&M's, along with the usual two bags of skittles. They sit in silence that night, drinking their own hot chocolates and eating their own bags of sweets. Natasha began to make him hot chocolate every night at the beginning of May. They had been having their late-night sessions for four months and they trusted each other. Not completely, but almost there. Peter always let down his guard, let her see the real him. Because he knew what it was like to learn to trust someone. It took time and effort, from both sides. Slowly but surely she let her guard down. They're now at the point, they feel so comfortable with each other, they keep forgetting that the Avengers don't know how close they are. 

It's a Friday when the Avengers find out how close they are. At least, they find out just a little bit of how close they are. Peter gets home from school to find Natasha and Clint playing Mario Kart as everyone else watches. He drops his bag at the door and kicks off his shoes before settling in the spot next to Nat (he's the only one who gets to call her that, he asked her, once). It's empty, as usual, because nobody likes Nat when she's in a competition. And, Peter will admit, she is scary, but she's Nat, so it's fine. He's in the middle of Nat and Clint, so he uses it to his advantage. Nobody wants Nat to lose, she's not bad at losing, exactly, just very, very scary when she does.

And she pranks you until you apologise sincerely. Which everyone but Peter does after the first prank. Peter likes to push her, likes to prank her back, likes to see how far she goes. So, he decides to help everybody out. Peter taps Nat lightly on the leg and touches his lips. She nods slightly and he turns to Clint with a malicious smile on his face. Nobody notices, too busy watching the screen, and he takes his chance. Leaning forward, he whispers into Clint's ear. Just as he leans back, Clint squawks in indignation, drops his controller and spins to face him. Nat reaches the finish line in first place, Clint losing a couple of seconds later. Everyone turns to the two, wondering why Clint lost when he's usually the best out of all of them. 

They're met with a smirking Peter, a smiling Natasha and a horrified Clint. Clint, who's still speechless, mouths at Peter wordlessly as he turns to hug Nat and give her a high five. The rest of them look on in confusion. First of all, Clint lost? Second, Peter and Natasha are hugging and he's not dead? And third, Peter is smirking! Evilly! When Nat and Peter pull apart, they notice everyone staring in confusion. He turns to them.

"I asked Clint a question." He shrugs innocently, puppy dog eyes on full. Everyone instantly forgives him, knowing he wouldn't ask anything too bad, but Clint turns to everyone, mouth still gaping.

"He- He told me he was going to fill the vents with chickens!" Everyone stops and stares at the two, Natasha smiling proudly at Peter.

"I'm sorry- What?" Tony turns to Peter.

"Well, as you should all know, Clint's deathly afraid of chickens, because of the time in-" Clint slams his hand across Peter's mouth, face turning red.

"What?! You're afraid of chickens?!" Nat laughs lightly, patting his leg before walking over to stand in front of the other Avengers.

"Yes. Did I really not tell you that?" Clint stares at her, pleading with his eyes. She ignores him, and gestures for Peter to join her as the Avengers shake their heads.

"Well, lucky for you, me and Peter over here have a couple of stories to tell." Clint falls backwards, into the sofa, hands coming up to cover his face as he groans.

"Now, Peter. Would you like to go first?" He steps forward.

"Of course, Nat." The Avengers hold their breaths, the last time somebody called Natasha Nat, they ended up with a broken arm. When nothing happens, they relax slightly.

"Now, back before Nat and Clint here joined the Avengers..."

Peter goes and tells them the story. Of how Nat and Clint were on a mission when the enemy found out about them. They had sent chickens that they had experimented on after them. Chickens that had mutated, so they had silver fangs and four legs and could fly. He tells them how Nat escaped and watched as five chickens attacked Clint, who was screaming in terror. It was only later they found out that they had digested some sort of hallucinogenic drug, and that they were just normal chickens, and still, to this day Clint still insisted that they were actually mutated.

By the end of the story, the Avengers are laughing and Clint is groaning into his arms. He looks up when Peter steps back.

"How did you know that?" Peter just smirks.

"I have a friend on the inside." At that, Clint turns to Nat and sighs.

"You told him and not us?! I'm offended Tasha." Nat is on Tony in a second and bending his arm backwards.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"Really Natasha?" He grunts out, and Nat is off him in a second, back next to Peter who is glaring at her. Nobody expects that to go well, but Natasha just mouths 'I'm Sorry' before turning back to the rest of them. Everyone stares on in shock, but before they can say anything, Nat is starting up with another embarrassing story about Clint. By the end of the day, all the Avengers hurt from laughing so hard, and Nat and Peter look victorious. That night, the two have a celebratory feast of all the sweets they have. And if they are both high on sugar for the next thirty six hours, then they know nothing about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'that way' by Tate McRae  
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
